Multicultural Club to Show Film on R.I. Slave Trade

By: Ann O’Sullivan
Posted In: News

Salve Regina University’s Multicultural Student Organization is sponsoring a viewing of the documentary “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North” on Monday, Nov. 17 from 6-8 p.m. in the Rodgers Recreation Center Conference Room.

The film was produced and directed by Katrina Browne, a descendant of the prominent Dewolf family of Bristol, R.I., and talks about the slave trade in the North.

It is being shown to try to “heighten people’s awareness to diversity,” says university vice president Sister Leona Misto.

The slave trade turned James Dewolf into one of Rhode Island’s richest men, and he eventually became one of the largest slave traders in U.S. history. The town of Bristol is rooted in Dewolf’s trade.

Browne realized, when looking into her grandmother’s account of the family’s history three years ago, that her family was a significant part of the largely understated northern slave trade.

“I haven’t the stomach enough to describe the ensuing slave trade” were the words that would turn into her mission. To create a documentary that follows the tracks of the infamous triangle trade and nine Dewolf descendants from Rhode Island to Ghana and Cuba as they wrestle with their family’s history.

The film is being shown in part by the National Conference for Community and Justice and the Rhode Island Council for Humanity. Admission is free and open to the public.